Listen live

North, South Korea to hold rare government talks

Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung (L) links hands with the former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (R) during a farewell luncheon at Baekhwawon State Guest House in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000.

Reuters

North and South Korea have agreed to hold rare high-level talks on Wednesday, ahead of a planned reunion of family members divided by the Korean War.

The meeting will involve officials from South Korea's defence ministry, unification ministry and presidential office and will take place at the border truce village of Panmunjom, according to unification ministry spokesman Kim Eui-Do.

It would be the first high-level talks by the two sides since South Korean president Park Geun-Hye took office a year ago.

An official at the unification ministry says the last official high-level talks were held in December 2007.

Although no agenda has been set, there will be "discussions on major inter-Korean issues" including the upcoming family reunion, spokesman Kim said.

While North Korean state media did not immediately report the planned meeting, the South Korean unification ministry says it had come at Pyongyang's request to discuss overall North-South Korean ties.

An official in the presidential Blue House says the South had agreed as a "reciprocal response" to a series of recent conciliatory gestures by North Korea.

South Korea's unification minister Ryoo Kihl-Jae says a successful reunion could open a new chapter in relations.

"If the first step goes well, it can move to the next level, expanding the scope of inter-Korean cooperation at a faster speed," he said.

The South Korean delegation at Panmunjom will be led by Kim Kyou-Hyun, the first deputy director of national security in president Park's administration.

Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, says the fact the talks would happen at all was "meaningful" but cautioned against raised expectations.

"It's premature to say whether this will lead to any breakthrough or policy change," Mr Kim said.

"A clearer answer will come after the meeting, but it will provide an opportunity for both sides to read the minds of their leaders."

The two nations agreed last week to hold a reunion for several hundred separated family members from February 20-25 at the North's Kumgang mountain resort.

Military tensions

Millions of Koreans were separated by the 1950-53 war, and the vast majority have since died without having had any communication at all with surviving relatives.

But there have been fears the North might cancel the event in protest at South Korea and the United States pushing ahead with annual joint military exercises which begin on February 24.

Pyongyang views the exercises as rehearsals for invasion and has repeatedly called on Seoul to scrap the drills, warning at one point of an "unimaginable holocaust" if they went ahead.

Last year's drills fuelled a surge in military tensions, with Pyongyang threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike, and nuclear-capable US stealth bombers making dummy runs over the Korean peninsula.

The talks in Panmunjom will take place a day before the arrival in Seoul on Thursday of US Secretary of State John Kerry for a visit focused on North Korea.

The US State Department has said it was deeply disappointed" by Pyongyang's decision at the weekend to rescind its invitation to a US envoy to discuss the case of an American missionary jailed in North Korea.

Ambassador Robert King had hoped to secure the release of Kenneth Bae, who was arrested in November 2012 and later sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for attempting to overthrow the North Korean government.